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Gina Montain
Gina and Magnus with three of their boys pictured in the mid 1920ies.
The official emigration-records state that Johanne Gurine Ougendal left Norway for America
10th July 1907.
According to her son James Montain, she left with a cousin, and somehow she came to work at
a farm near Fargo ND.
It was ran by the Montain-family, descending from Skåne in Sweden, and in 1908 Gina,
as she became known in America married Magnus Montain.
They moved to Minneapolis soon after their wedding, and also lived at Washburn Wis.
for a short time, before purchasing a farm about 22 miles north of Minneapolis,
in Anoka County, near Forest Lake.
Here four sons grew up, and although the land was much more fertile than at Ougendal
the crops sometimes failed, making the family dependant on what they could harvest from the nature.
Gina died in 1964, having never returned to Norway mainly due to high costs.
However, her son James have been three times to see the place where his mother grew up.
The farm where Gina and Magnus settled is no longer owned by the family.
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